Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt to Join Woodrow Wilson Center as Public Policy Scholar

Washington, D.C.- Lee H. Hamilton, director of the , announced today the appointment of Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Ambassador Babbitt will begin her appointment at the Woodrow Wilson Center in February following her departure from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she has served as Deputy Administrator since 1997. The USAID is responsible for administering the U.S. government's foreign assistance and humanitarian relief programs.

"Hattie Babbitt has been a distinguished public servant, and the Center is delighted that she will be joining its community of public policy scholars," said Hamilton. "She will be an asset for the Center, and I know many of our scholars will want to draw on her extensive experience. Her work on issues of globalization, the information technology revolution, and the U.S. response capability to these post-Cold War developments dovetails with several key themes being emphasized in the Center's ongoing work."

Prior to her current position with USAID, Babbitt was at the Department of State, where she served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, leading the U.S. negotiating team that completed the world's first anti-corruption convention. Fluent in Spanish, she also chaired the special OAS committee that coordinated that organization's implementation of the initiatives of the Summit of the Americas.

"I am committed to interdisciplinary scholarship that crosses traditional sector lines," Babbitt said. "The Wilson Center provides an ideal setting for such work."